Many people enjoy entertainment programming that is based on visual media, such as films and television (TV) programs. As used here, the term “entertainment programming” refers to any type of live or pre-recorded programming, including both fictional programming (e.g., fictional movies and/or TV shows) and non-fictional programming (e.g., documentary movies and/or TV news programs).
Persons comprising the typical audience of such entertainment programming principally use both their visual and auditory senses to perceive certain information about its content. In particular, certain visual information (or “visual cues”) is commonly used in entertainment programming to efficiently communicate information to and/or influence the experience of persons within the audience. For example, a movie character's physique, dress and/or manner of speaking, as well as their current surroundings may provide the audience with contextual information about their location, their possible role in the plot and their likely intentions.
Visual cues are used in the entertainment programming of almost every genre. For example, comedy movies and programs tend to rely heavily on visual cues to allow the audience to appreciate the humor, such as a character getting hit in the face with a pie who then smiles as he eats part of the pie that he was just hit with.
Entertainment programming also typically uses certain auditory information (or “audio cues”) in a similar manner to communicate certain information to and/or influence the experience of persons in the audience. For example, horror and suspense films, can increase the sense of suspense or fear of the audience at certain key points through the use of audio cues, such as music and sound effects. A well-known example of such an audio cue is the musical chord in the movie Jaws™ that is played whenever the namesake shark of this movie approaches a character who is in the water.
It is common for persons in the audience of entertainment programming to include both people who can see normally, as well as people with certain visual impairments. Visually impaired people may include people with limited eyesight due to cataracts and/or people who are legally blind due to prior illness or accident. Due to such impairments, visually-impaired people are very likely to not fully perceive (or totally miss) visual cues included within a movie or TV show and rely more (or be solely reliant) on audio cues. This may result in a less-than-satisfactory entertainment experience being provided to those who are visually impaired relative to that experienced by those who are sighted.
For example, a person who is legally blind and a sighted person may both go to a cinema to watch a movie. The inability of the blind person to perceive the visual cues presented may impair their ability to follow and appreciate the film. Even when the sighted person is able to verbally describe visual cues to the blind person, the amount of verbal communication that can be provided about visual cues on the screen may be insufficient to provide the blind person with an equivalent entertainment experience.
Although the above example involved a person who is blind, a similar situation may apply to people with less severe visual impairments, such as those with cataracts or limited peripheral vision. People with these types of visual impairment may miss or not entirely see visual cues that occur within certain area of their vision, which also results in a less-than-satisfactory entertainment experience.
In certain situations, sighted people may also experience less-than satisfactory entertainment experiences from an inability to perceive visual cues. For example, a sighted person watching a TV show may have a baby in another room. The sighted person may have to temporarily leave the room where the TV is located and travel to the room where the baby is located in order to check on or change the baby's diaper. Although it is likely that the audio soundtrack for the TV show would still be audible to the sighted person during this period, it is obvious that he or she would miss seeing visual cues that would have otherwise enhanced their entertainment experience.
Another situation where a sighted person would receive a less-than-satisfactory entertainment experience would occur when the person is involved in a situation where their sense of vision is otherwise occupied. For example, a sighted person who is driving a car may want to catch up on an episode of their favorite TV show but obviously cannot watch it while driving.
“Videodescription” (also known as “audio description” or “descriptive video service”) refers to an existing technology that provides an additional narration track intended for visually-impaired consumers of entertainment programming, such as films and TV shows. The narration describes what is on the screen during natural pauses in the audio soundtrack, such as during gaps in the dialog between characters or during transitions between scenes.
However, the current state of the technology providing for videodescription is quite limiting. In particular, the single narration track that is provided for videodescription is typically pre-mixed with the audio soundtrack for the movie or TV show, meaning that a user cannot choose those aspects of the programming for which they would like narration.
Therefore there is a need to improve the current technology in videodescription to enhance the user's entertainment experience.